No Angel Came
by Mitch82
Summary: An extension to the ending of Vortex. Slash: Clex.


Title: No Angel Came

Series: Nope.

Rating: R

Pairing: Clark/Lex

Category: Angst/Romance

Spoilers: Tempest, Vortex

Feedback: Drop me a line. It won't cost you a thing.

Author's Note: This is *not* an alternate ending to Vortex. It's only a continuation. :)

**********

Lionel took a deep breath and continued, the burning dryness of his throat intermittently cutting his voice into a harsh whisper. "Listen, I know you agreed to go right ahead, right way to operate." 

Lex nodded slightly, squeezing his father's hand. "I thought it was best to take immediate action."

"I would have done the same thing," Lionel rasped, "and we both... would have been wrong."

"What are you saying?"

Lionel took one more breath and blurted in a whisper as venomous as it was quiet, "I'm blind. The operation failed, and that's not going to change. It would have been better if you'd not helped me, if you'd let me... die."

Lex wrenched his hand out of his father's quaking grip and backed away. His heart pounded unevenly in his ears and he fought for control over his emotions as images weaved through his mind. Sickening images of the moment just before he had saved his father. He had been so afraid, so unsure. 

In that fateful moment, he knew his entire future was hanging in the balance. He knew that either way, his life would be changed forever. Could he handle having his father's blood on his hands for the sake of his own freedom? There was a time when he would have said yes without hesitation. His father had been his fiercest enemy for as long as he could remember, and having such a convenient way to end it literally dropped into his lap would have been a dream come true. His conscience wouldn't have even weighed into the equation.

But that was another time. Lex wasn't the same person and he knew it. And as the piercing wind roared around him, and his father lay begging on the floor, one word rang out in his mind. Clark.

__

Clark would want me to save him, to do the right thing.

After that, there was no question in his mind. He knew he had to save his father, for Clark as well as for his own sanity. 

But now... 

**********

Clark held onto the railing next to the stairs in the loft. 

__

You can't hide out here forever.

The sting of Lana's words was still fresh in his mind. He couldn't believe how close he had come to telling her everything. Lana Lang, her eyes so warm and honest, her touch so soft. Clark had never known someone so pure and he cursed the fact that he had to lie to her. 

His ears still hadn't stopped ringing from the deafening wind inside the tornado. Or was it the sound of his own fear? Not fear for Lana's life or even his own. Somehow, he knew from the moment he ran in after her that they would both be okay. 

It was a fear of how that moment would change him, what it would reveal to him about himself. He'd gotten used the idea of being from another planet, but as the months went by, and the meteor freaks marched on like a grisly parade, he wondered if he really wanted to know how _not_ human he was. 

Nothing like jumping into a twister and living to tell about it to remind you that you're completely alone in the world.

Clark shook his head, forcing himself to stop obsessing. He decided to head back to the house and help with dinner to get his mind off of everything. But just as he got to the bottom of the stairs, he felt a shock of pain in his stomach so fierce and so utterly wretched that he doubled over, gasping for air.

"Lex..." was the only word he could whisper, and within the next second, he had entered the kitchen.

"Oh!" Martha squeaked. "Clark, don't do that, sweetie. You'll give me a heart attack."

"It's Lex!" Clark said, grabbing her shoulders urgently. "Lex..."

"Honey, what's wrong? Did something happen to Lex?"

"Yes! I mean... I don't know."

"Clark, calm down. Take a deep breath and tell me what happened."

Clark's breathing only quickened as desperate tears filled his eyes. "Mom... Lex. I'm losing him." The last word came out in a whisper as his sobs took over.

Martha took her boy into her arms. "Clark, you're not losing anybody. Lex is just fine. What is going on?"

"I have to go."

"Honey, wait--"

"I have to save him!"

Before she had a chance to protest, he was gone.

**********

Lex entered the expensive Metropolis hotel room he was renting until the repairs on the mansion were finished. He barely took time to make sure the door was closed behind him before making a sharp left turn to the bar. He attempted to pour a glass of brandy, but had to put the bottle down and wait for his hands to stop shaking. Wondering if they ever would.

He reached for the bottle a second time. He heard a faint _whoosh_ behind him, and before his brain could even register the sound, there was a hand over his own, pushing the bottle back down onto the bar. "What the..."

He turned around to see wet, shining eyes gazing back at him. Clark.

"Lex, I have to talk to you."

Lex felt the bile rise in his throat as he thought of the distrust he had seen in those eyes only the day before. "Clark... no. I can't do this. Not right now, please?"

He staggered over to the couch, feeling like the world was crumbling beneath him. Landing on the soft cushions, he closed his eyes, hoping Clark was just a delusion, wishing he would go away. He knew this wasn't the case as he felt the cushions sink next to him.

"Lex, please." Warm hands on his face now...

__

God, Clark is always so warm.

...gently tracing his cheekbones...

__

So gentle.

"Lex, talk to me."

__

So kind. 

Lex's eyes shot open. No, this wasn't how he wanted it. Clark wasn't acting this way because he cared, because he actually wanted Lex to be okay. He was doing it because it was his nature to help people. He had hurt Lex and he felt a moral obligation to fix things, nothing more than that. 

__

I'm nothing more than a faceless victim to Clark now.

Clark started to pull Lex into his arms. "Lex, I can help you..."

"No!" Lex pulled away and stood up. "I don't need your help, Clark."

"Lex, I--"

"It's over. I've had a great time being your pet project, but it's time we faced the truth."

"The truth?"

"I'm a bad person, Clark! I have tried to be good for you. I have tried to sever all of my shady connections and separate myself from my father, but I can only do so much." Clark opened his mouth, but didn't say anything. Lex went on despite the tears forming in his eyes.

"You know what really hurts? For a second there, I actually thought I had a chance. You have a light inside of you, Clark. A huge, warm light. And when I thought you were willing to let me share in that light, everything was okay. All of the hard decisions became easy. The difference between right and wrong was so fucking clear."

"I still want you to share in it, Lex."

"No, you don't!" Lex screamed. "You don't think of me as a friend anymore. You're only here because of your quest to single-handedly save the whole goddamn world!"

"Lex, you're wrong!" Clark rose to his feet and started inching forward, backing Lex into the wall. "I'm here because I know something is wrong. I felt it, Lex, it was horrible. It was like something inside me was breaking and nothing I could do would ever fix it."

Lex blinked as his back thumped against the wall and a tear streamed down his cheek.

"You were at the hospital weren't you? You were with your father. Lex, what did he say to you?"

"How did you..."

"I told you, Lex. I felt it. Whatever he said to you, whatever that _bastard_ ever says to you, you can't listen! Do you understand me? If you want any chance of holding onto the light, you have to forget him."

Lex considered questioning Clark further, trying to figure out the apparent telepathic connection they had shared. But he felt a chill go down his spine as he realized he didn't care. He just didn't fucking care anymore. 

"It's too late, Clark," he said coldly.

"No. No it isn't..."

"It is. I'm my father's son. I can't change that."

Clark tried to argue, but could think of nothing rational to say. Instead, he pulled Lex roughly into his arms, holding Lex's head against his chest. "You can do anything you want, Lex, I know that. You deserve to be happy and you never will be if you follow in Lionel's footsteps."

Lex didn't fight the embrace, but he didn't return it. He waited patiently for Clark to let go. He thought about the day before, watching Clark get ready for the Spring Formal. It had taken every ounce of strength not to touch more than just Clark's neck as he tied his bowtie. Clark's breath falling gently on his face, that aftershave teasing him with his own desire, and the promise of a future free from his father's influence.

Yesterday may as well have been another lifetime. Like Clark, Lex had felt something inside him break. His emotions had been so raw after saving his father's life, and Lionel's searing words in the hospital on top of everything he had already been through had sealed it. Heart, conscience, soul. Call it what you will, but something in Lex, that vital piece of goodness that kept him from falling into the darkness, was finally gone. There was nothing Clark could do to get it back, and Lex found that this little display of pubescent emotion was becoming rather comical, albeit pathetic.

__

Father would be proud, he thought with a smirk.

"Are you finished, Kent?" he asked, pronouncing Clark's last name like it was a curse word.

Clark pulled back, his eyes red and puffy. "Lex, this isn't you. Please don't do this. Don't let go of the light."

Lex took Clark's arms from his shoulders and pushed them away. "I don't have to. The light has already let go of me."

Turning abruptly on his heel, Lex walked to the door and held it open, motioning for Clark to leave. "I have things to do."

"No," Clark stated, shaking his head. "I won't leave you. Not until you let me help you."

"Where were you when I needed your help, Clark?!" Lex spouted. "Where were you when my father was pinned to the ground begging for mercy and I needed you to tell me what to do? After all the times you've saved me, I was actually beginning to think you were a guardian angel or something. Well, no angel came for me this time. Why? Because he was too busy saving Lana Lang. And what if you had come? Can you honestly say that you would have stopped me? That the good and moral Clark Kent would stand there and let a human life end without even trying to intervene? No, you wouldn't. That's the only reason I saved him. Because I knew you would want me to."

Clark bowed his head.

"You can't tell me I'm wrong, can you? I told you I don't need your help, Clark. I don't need to be comforted, I don't need to be saved, and I sure as hell don't need a sniveling little boy wasting my time with his hero complex."

"Lex--"

"Go, Clark. Go rescue someone who needs rescuing. Lana's probably getting herself stuck in a tree somewhere as we speak, so you better get moving."

Clark's desperation finally got the better of him, and he crossed the room to where Lex was standing and covered the older man's lips with his own. They tightened under his contact, but he only pressed harder, forcing his tongue between them and into Lex's mouth.

He didn't know what he expected from it, but he just needed some kind of response. It didn't matter if Lex returned the kiss, or even screamed for him to stop. Clark just needed _something. _Anything but this frigid indifference.

But indifference was all he got. Lex didn't struggle or cry out or even move. He stood there calmly with his hands at his sides and his tongue completely limp in his mouth, as though Clark's passion was simply an annoyance he had to endure.

Clark's lower lip trembled as he pulled it away. Lex merely stood there, looking colder and more uncaring than Clark had ever seen him. Fighting the sobs that were already climbing up his throat, Clark ran from the room. He was angry and humiliated at the way things had turned out, but his hurt ran deeper than that, like his soul was breaking into a thousand pieces.

__

Lex is gone, he thought as he got into the elevator. _The Lex that I knew is dead and I can't ever get him back. _

The doors slid shut and he collapsed against the wall, crying until his head pounded and his eyes felt sore. 

**********

Clark walked at a normal speed until he was out of the hotel and into an alley where he was sure nobody was watching. Then he took off into super speed all the way back to Smallville. He let the wind rip his hair around his face as everything seemed be happening in slow motion around him.

For a brief moment, he nearly panicked as the rushing wind reminded him of the inside of the tornado, but it didn't last. His speed had always been a comfort to him, a way of literally escaping his pain, even just for a little while.

When he got back to Smallville, he stuck to the cornfields as much as he could to avoid alarming anyone on the streets. But instead of going home, he slowed back down and started walking through the field at a human pace, finding solace in the stalks rising around him as if protecting him from the ugliness of the outside world.

Breathing in the heavy smell of vegetation, he closed his eyes and trusted himself to the earth, walking blindly through the field. He scrunched up his face as a stray leaf slapped his eyelids, but he kept going, needing the peace, the oneness with this planet that wasn't quite his. He reached out his arms and let the stringy rows trail across his wrists and along his fingers, tickling his palms.

Taking another deep breath, Clark tried to force away the images of the tornado and Lex and the ever-looming mystery of his own origins. As he let the breath out, he felt his shoe strike against something hard. He opened his eyes and found himself inside a nearly perfect circle of flattened cornstalks, the spaceship lying at his feet.

Bitter tears burned his eyes once again, and he let out a furious growl as he began to pound the ship with all of his strength, needing to destroy it. On some irrational plane, he felt that if he wiped it from existence, then maybe his own life could take on some semblance of normalcy. 

But try as he might, the ship wasn't harmed. Clark couldn't even dent it and when his fists started to throb, he gave up, falling into a heap beside it.

"Don't cry!" he growled at himself, even as the lump in his throat threatened to break. "Just stop!"

He held his breath until he felt like he was under control, but when he looked down at the ship, he saw the small octagonal indentation and remembered the piece of the ship Lex had found. This sent him over the edge and he sobbed Lex's name, tracing the shape with his fingers.

"Lex, why? Why won't you let me help you?" The cold loathing in Lex's eyes flashed into Clark's mind and his tears increased, soaking his face and dropping onto the ground beneath him. "I love you, Lex. I want to help you."

His tears continued to fall. A few landed on the ship and ran down the curved side, flattening when they reached the indentation. "Just let me help you, Lex," he whispered.

"Lex cannot be helped," a deep voice rang out above him.

Clark looked up, startled by the sound, then terrified by what he saw. Above the ship was a floating man, or at least the apparition of a man. He seemed only half there, as Clark could see through him to the cornstalks on the other side of the circle. He scrambled to his feet, preparing to fight if he had to, but the man held up his hands.

"No, Kal-El. I am not your enemy. Look into my eyes."

Clark squinted as he took a closer look at the man. He reminded Clark of himself, but older and wiser. There was such sympathy and warmth in those eyes, such understanding. Clark was tempted to throw himself into the man's arms, but he resisted, guessing that it was only an image being projected from the ship.

"This is an image, Kal-El," said the man, soothingly. "The image of your father. I am here to help you."

"Father?" Clark whispered, shocked. "But why now? I've needed answers long before now."

The man pointed to the indentation on the ship, which had taken on a brilliant golden glow. "Your tears touched the ignition point. Your tears are the activation. What do you need to know, my son?"

Clark's jaw dropped. He had a hundred thousand questions to ask; about his life, his home, his powers, and most importantly, why he was sent here. But at the sudden prospect of actually having one of these questions answered, he couldn't clear his mind long enough to ask one. The only thing that was real in his mind was Lex. _His_ Lex, his best friend. The man for whom he would be willing to give up everything, if he could only get through to him.

Setting his jaw, Clark responded. "I need to know how to save Lex. His father is evil and I have to stop him."

The man smiled sadly at Clark. "Like I said, Lex cannot be helped. His course is set."

"What do you mean he can't be helped? The future hasn't happened yet, people can change!"

"They have to want to change, Kal-El." Clark shivered at the warm enunciation of his true name. "It's true the future has not yet been written. But the past has."

"The past?"

"Lex's father hurt him very deeply today. In that moment, he lost his will to fight. It is gone. And no matter what you do, he will never get it back. His soul is lost to the darkness."

Clark let out a frustrated sigh. "But if you don't know the future, how can you know for sure?"

"My son, I see his reflection in your eyes. He has let go of his goodness on levels he is not even aware of. There is no hope."

Clark lowered slowly to his knees. "There has to be something I can do," he whispered. "He's the only one who really understands, even if he doesn't know the whole truth. I... I love him."

"I know you do, son, but you must let him go. What about Lana Lang?" Clark looked up at the image in confusion. "You risked everything to save her life, and you succeeded. She wants to understand, Kal-El, she needs you too."

"But that's just it, she _doesn'_t need me! Lana has her aunt and my parents and a huge circle of friends who love her! She may want to understand, but she doesn't need me the way Lex does. Lex is completely alone, don't you see that? The only thing he has to hold onto is his father, and his father will ruin him!"

"His father already _has _ruined--"

__

"NO!" Clark bellowed, frightening even himself. "You can't tell me he's past all hope! I have strength and speed that nobody on this planet can even comprehend! I have the ability to see through things, I am obviously telepathic on some level, and I'm pretty sure I can fly! You can't tell me that with all of these powers, there is not one thing I can do to help him!"

At last, the image of Clark's father seemed either unable or unwilling to answer. The man aimed his eyes heavenward, as if trying to make an important decision. Breathing deeply, he returned his gaze to Clark. "There is one thing, but I do not recommend--"

"I'll do it! I'll do anything, just tell me what it is!"

"You are so young, Kal-El. This solution is irreversible and you can only use it once. If you would just wait for the ache to heal, there may come a time in the future when you need this more than you do now."

"Look into my eyes, Father," Clark said slowly. "I have to save Lex. Nothing in this world means more to me than he does."

The man stared gravely into Clark's eyes, almost as if challenging him. "I hope for your sake that this is true. Because if you take this path, sacrifices will have to be made."

"Tell me," Clark stated firmly.

"Our planet was not just in another solar system. It was in another time continuum. The continuum had been slowly folding in on itself for thousands of years, as they all do eventually. We just happened to have the bad fortune of being there when the edges hit our world, destroying it. That is why we sent you here, my son, in a ship that your mother and I created."

"You were scientists?" Clark asked, stricken.

"Not quite in the terms you understand, but essentially yes. We knew the continuum would destroy itself in our lifetime and we constructed a ship that we hoped could cross the barrier into another continuum, a place where we would be safe. But the collapse came sooner than anticipated and the test ship, the ship you arrived in, was the only one finished."

"So you sent me through..."

"Praying that you would survive the journey."

Clark wiped his eyes, trying to keep his mind on his goal. "I don't understand. How does this help Lex?"

"The existence of time on our planet was outside the continuum of this planet. The ship was designed to maintain the existence of our time inside, to keep you safe until you reached a destination."

"So if we were outside of this time, the chances of my landing when I did..."

"Were as good as the chances of landing at any given time in this planet's history."

Clark swallowed, thinking of what it would have been like if he had landed a hundred years earlier, or even a million. He couldn't believe his good fortune, coming to Smallville in this time, to have been found by Jonathan and Martha. And Lex. He nodded to the man, urging him to continue.

"This ship could still generate a small field of our time continuum, and if helping Lex is really what you want..."

"I could enter the continuum and come back out at any point I want!" Clark said, his eyes widening. "I could go back in time to the hospital and stop Lex's father from saying those cruel things to him!" The image of his father shook his head. "What? Why wouldn't that work?"

"Like you said, Kal-El, Lex's father is evil. Even if you erase that particular moment in time, Lionel will find another way to ruin his son. It is inevitable. You must find the moment in time when a different decision would have truly changed things."

Clark furrowed his brow, concentrating fiercely. "Well, the only time I can think of is when Lex rescued his father, but that's when I was helping Lana..." He trailed off, looking up at his father in disbelief. "No... you can't mean that--"

"Yes, my son. That is the moment that changed everything. If Lex truly means more to you than anything in this world - and in this _time_ - that is the moment you must revisit."

The man looked at Clark sympathetically as Clark looked at his hands. Such smooth hands that had conquered so much, that had ripped the door off of Lana's truck in the tornado and held her close until the wind had stopped. Balling those hands into fists he closed his eyes and whispered two words:

"Do it."

The man nodded his head slowly, and then disappeared. In his place rose a growing circle of shimmering gold, beautiful and blinding, both warming and chilling Clark to the very base of his consciousness. He made a move to jump inside, but held himself back.

"I don't know if I can do it!" he yelled over the increasing roar. He thought of all the moments that had brought him to this point, and in the face of the portal, it was almost as if they were happening again.

__

Lana's frustrated stare in the loft. "You can't hide out here forever."

Grabbing his mother's shoulders in the kitchen. "Mom... Lex. I'm losing him!"

Holding Lex's face in the hotel room. "Lex, talk to me."

"I'm a bad person, Clark!"

The image of his real father standing above him. "Lex cannot be helped."

"What do you mean he can't be helped?"

"The future has not yet been written. But the past has."

Lex's cold stare. "I'm my father's son. I can't change that."

"You can do anything you want, Lex, I know that."

"They have to want to change, Kal-El."

"Lex, this isn't you. Don't let go of the light."

"The light has already let go of me."

"What about Lana Lang? She needs you too."

"But she doesn't need me the way Lex does. Lex is completely alone!"

"No angel came for me this time. Because he was too busy saving Lana Lang."

"If you take this path, sacrifices will have to be made."

"That's the only reason I saved him. Because I knew you would want me to."

Clark shook his head violently

__

...because I knew you would want me to...

"No..."

__

...because I knew you would want me to...

"No!"

__

"Can you honestly say that you would have stopped me?"

Clark looked directly into the light of the portal. Suddenly, all of the hard decisions became easy. And the difference between right and wrong was so fucking clear. Focusing every thought in his mind on the moment of the tornado, he ran to the portal and jumped inside, screaming Lex's name.

Through a blast of flashing color and a cold pressure on his heart, an image came into view. He saw himself standing on a street, still in his tuxedo. A few meters away, Lana was in her truck, screaming as the twister inched closer and closer. After another flash, the image became reality, and the terrifying moment was happening all over again.

"Clark!" She pounded on the window, tears streaming down her face.

"Lana!"

"Clark!" She held out his name as long as she could, but the tornado was upon her, sucking up the entire truck.

It was as horrible as it had been the first time around, and Clark covered his ears, fighting with all of his strength the impulse to run in after her again. But he thought of Lex and knew what he had to do. "Lana, I'm so sorry." His whisper was lost in the wind and without another thought, he let his superhuman speed take him back the other side of town, to the mansion. 

He broke through the front door and was in Lex's study almost instantly. The scene was exactly as he had pictured it. Lionel was under the column, reaching to Lex as the sharp wood hanging from the ceiling threatened to break off completely. Lex was merely standing there, blood pouring down his face from above his right eye. The wind in the room was unmercifully loud.

"Help me, Lex," Lionel begged. "Son... please!"

Still Lex didn't move, and Clark could do nothing but watch.

"Lex, I'm your father! Son!" The desperation in his voice was gut-wrenching.

Clark watched Lex, who still wasn't aware of his presence, and could almost see the thought process in his mind.

__

...because I knew you would want me to...

"Dad!" Lex ran to his father's side and fell to his knees.

"Lex, no!" Clark snapped out of his trance and fell to the floor behind Lex, who turned around to face him.

"Clark?! Help me! My father is stuck!"

"You can't! You have to let him go!"

"Clark he's my father!" Lex turned back to the column and started to lift it.

But Clark grabbed him around the waist and pulled him away, until he was standing with his back to the door. Lionel continued to scream, and Lex cried, fighting Clark with all of his strength but to no avail. "Clark, _please!!!_"

Clark was sobbing now too. "Lex, no! You have to trust me! I can't let you help him!"

Lex continued to fight, but not as fiercely, somehow knowing that Clark would never lie to him.

"Lex, I'm begging you!" Lionel screamed, but the last word was cut off by the frightening rip of plaster as the ceiling finally gave way. 

Clark felt Lex's body tense in his grip, and he held him tighter, knowing that this was something Lex had to witness.

The point of the ceiling crashing down and pierced Lionel directly in the heart with an audible thump as it drove through him and into the floor. The shock on his face was haunting, and even when Clark was sure he was dead, the expression remained. 

Several seconds later, the storm moved on, leaving Lex and Clark in deafening silence. Lex dropped to his knees and vomited on the floor. Clark gently rubbed his back until he was finished, at which point, Lex fell backwards into his lap, sobbing.

"It's going to be okay now, Lex," Clark soothed as he caressed his love's scalp. "Everything is going to be different. This was the right thing to do."

Lex continued to cry and Clark's own eyes watered over as he thought of Lana all alone in the tornado, knowing she couldn't possibly survive without him. But the warmth of Lex in his arms and the knowledge that he had saved not only Lex's life, but his _soul,_ quieted his conscience.

He knew he had done the right thing.

"I love you, Lex."


End file.
